August 19

Hundreds of mushrooms and/or fungi and this is only from our RV park.  Alaska is known for getting fungi in late summer, early fall. What can we expect, living in a temperate rain forest.  I amazes me how many shapes, sizes and colors these little fungi come in.

August 18

While Courtney may be going back to STL early to get surgery, Sandy and Jim will be staying until the last week of September. The plan is to hurry back and be home by the 1^st of October. We want to be out of Alaska by the time the first heavy snow storm comes in. As much as we’d love to stay in Skagway a little bit longer if we were too then we’d be stuck here all winter in a metal RV. Burr!

August 17

We’ve had quite an interesting few weeks. It seems that Alaska is becoming dangerous to the health of the workers at the Dredge and more specifically the Atkinsons.  Our first health-related issue came in the form of a black bug that’s half the size of a house fly called the White Sox. With a name like that one doesn’t conjure up a bug that will cause inflammation to your extremities. White Sox makes you think of a baseball team, something cute that doesn’t wreak havoc on your body.

Jim met a White Sox while watching salmon spawn in Dyea Flats. The first bite was mildly irritating, just like a mosquito bite. It wasn’t until the third bite he received on his elbow that his upper arm started swelling. And by the time he received his fifth bite his ankle swelled to double its size. He couldn’t come to work for three days because in addition to inflammation it also causes fever. Luckily, the White Sox has limited effect especially if you use an Alaskan remedy of limes, coffee grounds, devils club salve and a few other special ingredients.

A week after Jim went back to work Courtney went out with her friends to 80s Dance Night. It started like any other Friday night. They drank whiskey before going out, walked to the bar and hung out for a few hours. As the night was winding down one of our co-workers from Lithuania walked her home, made sure she got in the RV okay, and went back to company housing. Being the considerate drunk she is she took the dogs out for a little walk before she went to bed. But while she was out she came across a few lights dancing 30 feet up in the trees. She got an idea. Once she put the dogs away, she went exploring and joined the lights dancing in the trees. She is really good at climbing trees sober. She proved she was still good at climbing trees drunk. However, she is also good at falling out of trees. She fell 9 feet out of the tree onto her right foot. It rolled up like a taco. The one of the men behind the dancing lights in the tree had to carry her home on his back because she couldn’t walk.

After she crawled into the RV and tried to walk a few steps she called out. “Dad! Mom! I need help.” It was already 1 a.m. She was crying and in pain. But the funny part was she wasn’t crying because she was in pain. She was crying because she was embarrassed that she woke us up and upset because she thought she was an inconvenience.  What a thing to cry about at 1 a.m. after you’ve had a few too many glasses of whiskey and broke your foot.

After a few trips to the clinic we learned that she fractured her foot in two places and may need surgery. We aren’t certain if she’ll need an CT scan yet. We are still waiting on the results.

Monday, following the weekend Courtney fractured her foot, Sandy fell ill. After becoming extremely dehydrated and not being able to keep anything down the clinic told her to keep drinking water and sleeping. She’s been under the weather for a week now and was finally able to eat solid food last Thursday. A solid week and two days after she initially got the flu she will be able to go back to work.

July 4

We had a wonderful Fourth of July!  Although we weren’t able to celebrate the holiday with our biological family, we did enjoy celebrating with our Alaskan-work family.  The holiday was different from any we ever experienced.  It all began July 3^rd, with street dance beginning at 9:00 and fireworks beginning at 11:45 p.m., because it doesn’t really get dusk until 11:30.  From the middle of June to the middle of July we really don’t see a dark night, just dusk until 3:30  a.m. then daylight begins.  There was an amazing fireworks display, with fireworks being shot off of a barge in the harbor. 

How cute!

The Fourth dawned with a Kiddie parade beginning at 9:30 a.m., which ran three blocks long.  After the three blocks some of the kids from the parade entertained us with singing, tricks, or dance routine.  

Ten o’clock was the adult parade.  The old White Pass engine blocked the sight of the adult parade until it was ready to begin.  The Royal Mounties even made an appearance.  The parade went seven blocks through town, around the court house and back down the same seven blocks, so you have the opportunity to see the other side of the parade. 

There was a full day of games and races.  I’ve never heard of a SLOW bicycle race. It was hilarious watching people trying to ride their bikes as slowly as possible.  If you lost your balance or your foot touched the pavement you were disqualified.   

Courtney participated in the spike driving contest, placing fifth out of 14 girls.  Not too shabby. Now, she is suffering from sore arm muscles. An example of train tracks were laid on the street. Contestants tried to drive spikes into the ties.  Men had to drive five spikes, women three spikes in two minutes or less.  The winning time for men was 12.5 seconds.  Winning time for women was 46 seconds. Courtney completed it in 1 minute and 46 seconds. Not bad for a girl who has never swung a sledge hammer before. When she completed the competition she looked and sounded like she ran a few miles in that amount of time.

The reason for this contest was because the railroad was the major reason Skagway didn’t become a ghost town.  Ships unloaded cargo onto train cars, shipping supplies into Canada.  Goods were shipped by rail from Canada into Skagway to be loaded onto ships for transport.  From 1989 to 1942 the train ran right down the middle of the main street of town.

Skagway will celebrate anything to the fullest, even a big reason for keeping a small town alive! 

Courtney and Rejoy, her sister in arms, after they completed the challenge.

June 21st - Sandy

OK, I get it. We’re in Alaska.  We’ve seen humpback whales, eagles, sea otters, bears, caribou, and tourists (10,000 a day).  I had dinner at a party and the guy sitting next to me was from Washington, MO.  We’ve gone on nature walks, trail walks, train rides, BUT REALLY…… LIGHT all night LONG????  Haven’t I endured enough already??  We can’t even get a good night’s sleep because of the light.  When they say the sun sets, it really just slides past the horizon washing the area in a light dusk.

We went to an outdoor summer solstice concert (a bit nippy but fun).  There were four bands, all from Skagway.  People brought blankets and lawn chairs, sat or danced, just enjoying the beautiful outdoors and the sun.   

No, actually, I love being here, it’s an adventure every day. At the park, where we work, we run into people from all over the world. Some have even gone to Port Aransas, TX, where we used to live. Many don’t even speak English.  Everybody’s got a story about their trip. And, I’ve only met one person who was disappointed with their cruise. Can’t please everybody, I guess.  If you want adventure and fun (besides all the parties) this is the place to be.

We work with a great group of people, most in their mid-twenties to thirties, and then here we are in our 60s.  We are beginning to jell into a close knit group.  We are asked to join in with the younger generation like we are their ages.  BUT really, Jim and I can’t quite keep up.  We’ve been to a mock wedding, bingo, party after party, outdoor concerts, a magic show, trivia night, and the list goes on.

The kiddies love dancing to jams.

And the adults love dancing to the jams, too.

And, look! A rhubarb that is bigger than me!

May 25 - Sandy

May 25

We can’t believe it’s been a month ago that we arrived in Skagway, going from 3,830 feet  in altitude to 50 feet,  in 15 miles.  We had burned out the brakes even in low gear, so the last two miles was done with minimum braking power.  Oh what a way to arrive!   So far this has been an awesome experience.

Many people here have a greenhouse of one sort or another.  We found out that tomatoes and okra don’t grow well here outside – it’s too cool.  Beans, squash and cool crops do very well all summer long.  AND rhubarb grows wild.  By the end of the summer the rhubarb will be five feet tall.   There is one rhubarb plant that’s 160 years old.  There’s a protective fence around it, and a sign asking people to only take pictures.

Local dogs—I still haven’t seen a small dog that actually lives here.  All the dogs are of musher size and all look to have the same gene pool.  We were on the dog field (no not a dog park) when a couple brought out their dogs.  Their dogs were afraid of our little RV sized dogs.  The lady told us their dogs have never seen small dogs such as ours.

The school!  Skagway built a new state of the art school complex for 8 million dollars.  It’s complete with a greenhouse, salmon hatchery, and state of art technology.  The territory of Alaska was bought for 7.2 million in 1867.  The school has an average of 70 to 80 kids per school year from kindergarten to twelfth grade.  This year three seniors graduated.  The prom is open to all high schoolers as well as the whole town. It’s a big community affair! 

Everything is celebrated!  We joined in the city wide clean sweep before the tourists began to arrive.  Businesses donated prizes and trips, there was a meal for all “sweepers”.  The next weekend there was a city wide garage sale to benefit the school, where again the whole town shows up.  As one old timer said,  “We just pass around the junk!” It was fun.  We got to meet quite a few locals.

We are known as summer locals, and get discounts in stores and free tourist trips, when there’s space.  For example:   We can hop a ride on an airplane tour that lands on the glacier and just pay a tip.  Any of the shows are free. 

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May 10 - Sandy

May 10^th

Happy Mother’s Day to all.  We had an adventurous day.  We went to Dyea (said like dye*ee), a ghost town nine miles from Skagway.  We passed through mud flats, filed with thousands of ducks and seagulls.  It smelled wonderfully salty and fishy, just like the mud flats in Port Aransas.  Then on into the rain forest, yes rain forest.  It was filled with light green moss; that grows up tree trunks and on any deadfall on the forest floor.  It is like walking on deep plush carpet. 

Back to Dyea.  Dyea during 1898 to 1899 had up 10,000 people, most heading up the Chilkoot Trail through mountain passes on their way to the gold fields in the Klondke 600 miles away.  In 1901 there were three people living there. The town was mostly a tent city with some false front stores, with tents behind the fronts.  People discovered the best gold claims were already taken and gold was discovered in Nome, Alaska.  So off they went in another direction.  All that is left of Dyea is a false front store, a fallen down warehouse and a crumbling wharf in the mud flats.